“Come, come. It is very indiscreet of me, I know,” said Lady Lyle; “but as we are in such a secret committee here at this moment, I fancied I might venture to offer my congratulations.”
“Congratulations! on what would be the lad's ruin! Why, it would be downright insanity. I trust there is not a word of truth in it.”
“I repeat, sir, that I hear it all for the first time.”
“I conclude, then, I must have been misinformed.”
“Might I be bold enough to ask from what quarter the rumor reached you, or with whom they mated me?”
“Oh, as to your choice, I hear she is a very nice girl indeed, admirably brought up and well educated,—everything but rich; but of course that fact was well known to you. Men in her father's position are seldom affluent.”
“And who could possibly have taken the trouble to weave all this romance about me?” said Tony, flushing not the less deeply that he suspected it was Dolly Stewart who was indicated by the description.
“One of the girls, I forget which, told me. Where she learned it, I forget, if I ever knew; but I remember that the story had a sort of completeness about it that looked like truth.” Was it accident or intention that made Lady Lyle fix her eyes steadily on Tony as she spoke? As she did so, his color, at first crimson, gave way to an ashy paleness, and he seemed like one about to faint. “After all,” said she, “perhaps it was a mere flirtation that people magnified into marriage.”
“It was not even that,” gasped he out, hoarsely. “I am overstaying my time, and my mother will be waiting tea for me,” muttered he; and with some scarcely intelligible attempts at begging to be remembered to Alice and Bella, he took his leave, and hurried away.
While Tony, with a heart almost bursting with agony, wended his way towards home, Lady Lyle resumed her novel, and Sir Arthur took up the “Times.” After about half an hour's reading he laid down the paper, and said, “I hope there is no truth in that story about young Butler.”